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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWithout Priebus, Trump Is a Man Without a Party
By ousting Reince Priebus, the president is severing one of his few remaining ties to the GOP.
Reince Priebus looked battered. It was Monday, October 10the morning after the final presidential debateand our eyes met as I boarded a Southwest Airlines flight from St. Louis to Washington, D.C. It had been an extraordinary weekend: On Friday night, the biggest bombshell of the 2016 campaign dropped when the Washington Post published a decade-old audio recording on which Donald Trump made lewd comments about groping women. Speaker Paul Ryan disinvited Trump from a unity event in Wisconsin scheduled for the following day, and Priebus, then the chairman of the Republican National Committee, quietly made the case to Trump and his associates that he should quit the race. Trump refused. The Sunday debate, 48 hours after the tapes release, was dominated by discussion of Trumps history with women. He dismissed his recorded remarksgrab them by the pussy, Trump had said, boasting that his celebrity status allowed him to get away with aggressive advances on the opposite sexas locker room talk.
Priebus occupied a window seat, a pair of staffers to his left. The chair behind him sat empty; my instinct was to grab it and start firing questions through the slit at his left shoulder. But after studying Priebusthe slouched posture, the uncharacteristically rumpled suit, the groaning bags under his eyesI decided it might backfire. Whether it was pity or strategy, or a bit of both, I settled in two rows back, deciding it would be better to talk upon landing in Washington.
It was an eventful flight: Ryan, while we were at 30,000 feet, had told House Republicans on a conference call that he wouldnt be defending the president anymoreand urged them to do whatever was necessary to survive in their districts. Meanwhile, there were reports Priebus would hold his own call with RNC members to discuss ousting Trump. Priebus was understandably not keen to discuss any of these developments. But he seemed to appreciate my earlier gesture. When I greeted him, just beyond the entrance to the jet bridge, his staffers tried to shut down any interview. Priebus told them to back off. Its OK, he said, offering the sort of forced half-smile you see at hospital visitations. Go ahead. Shoot. We walked out of the terminal and past the baggage claim, covering all of it: the tape, the debate, Ryan, the RNC and what (if anything) it could do at this point. Priebus asked twice to speak off the record, which I allowed. But his most telling commentin retrospectcame at the end of our conversation, after he explained that the RNC had no mechanism to remove Trump as its nominee.
Look, he said, stepping into the sunlight outside Reagan National Airport, his staffers loading up an idling black Chevrolet Suburban. We dont get to pick the nominee. And we dont get to just walk away from him, either.
There's still hope that eventually more Republicans will turn against him. Due to his Putin-related shenanigans, I'd like to see him become a man without a country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Country
cstanleytech
(26,027 posts)from office either via impeachment or invoking the 25th.
If they don't do that then they will be setback atleast 40+ years and I do not see them regaining the majority in either house for 20 or more years.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)Sounds like Gen. Kelly might be as crazy as t-rump. I see what GOPers are trying to do, but it's too late. They are trying to distance themselves from t-rump.
SHRED
(28,136 posts)No separation now will help.
cstanleytech
(26,027 posts)going to lose that now no matter what but if they severe their ties now and ally with their former moderates and reign Donalds mad reign in they might be able to salvage the situation in 10 years or so but thats only if they act swiftly and before the year is over.
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)Despite all the "Mean Tweets," Jefferson Sessions is still on the job. They are both about as hardcore Republican as you can get.
Greybnk48
(10,144 posts)are there, Republicans all.
enough
(13,231 posts)uponit7771
(90,193 posts)Ilsa
(61,656 posts)Foreign leaders have in Trump, in working with him, in discussing ideas with him, in partnering with him. Any other president would have had a line waiting to talk to him about matters both serious and mundane.
DFW
(53,934 posts)The Republican Party has abandoned guys like Priebus.
They are now accurately represented by Trump, McConnell and Ryan. Big words, lots of money, no principles.
The one now without a party is now Priebus, not Trump.